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| (Left to Right): Mrs. Cielo Macapagal Salgado, Dr. Celestina Boncan, Dr. Cecila Serrano, Ms. Minda Arevalo, Prof. Erlita Mendoza and Mr. Arturo Macapagal. |
DR. CELESTINA P. BONCAN (PHA President 2006-2008) was speaker at the Commemorative Program on the Birth Centenary of His Excellency President Diosdado Macapagal held at the National Historical Commission of the Philippines Auditorium, Ermita, Manila, on September 27, 2010.
Dr. Boncan’s lecture entitled “The Diosdado Macapagal Presidency: Governance, Legislative Agenda and Foreign Policy” dealt with the thrust of the Macapagal Presidency which was to build the “edifice of the nation,” the various legislation enacted during his term to solve the immediate problems of the present and to build materially and spiritually for the future, and likewise its foreign policy thrust through which the Philippines made its mark in Southeast Asia and the world at large.
Cielo Macapagal Salgado and Arturo Macapagal, children of the late president, attended the commemorative program.
“The Diosdado Macapagal Presidency:
Governance, Legislative Agenda and Foreign Policy”
Dr. Celestina P. Boncan
University of the Philippines Manila
Philippine Historical Association
Abstract
On December 30, 1961 the 9th President of the Republic of the Philippines took his oath of office before the Filipino people gathered at the Quirino Grandstand at the Luneta. He was none other than His Excellency Diosdado Pangan Macapagal.
In his inaugural address on that historic day, President Macapagal likened the task of each presidency as building the “edifice of the nation.” Each president is called upon to add a stone to the edifice that will, in the end and in the future, build a strong and enduring structure. As to the “stone” that he was assigned to lay down in that edifice called Greater Philippines, it was, according to President Macapagal, the first, to solve the immediate problems of the present and second, to build materially and spiritually for the future.
The lecture presents the legislation enacted during the Macapagal Presidency in fulfillment of the goals that he laid down in his inaugural address. The paper likewise presents the foreign policy thrust of the Macapagal Presidency through which the Philippines made its mark in Southeast Asia and the world at large.
